Australia's fires, our floods and the climate crisis

There is no easy answer Jennifer. We need a mixture of all ways of producing energy for the time being. But in my view not Fracking.

Grammaretto, I too have wondered about this. I do really believe what the scientists tell us but I still heat the water for my shower. I have come to the conclusion human beings including myself are more selfish than self-sacrificing.

Of course we can supply energy through renewables JE ...why doubt it? The technology exists and it’s simply a matter of refining and restructuring. All my electricity is from renewables and 10% of my gas.

Widespread use of electric cars in just on the horizon.

Fracking is not the answer as that, again is use of fossil fuels.

How can you produce enough energy to make thousands of wind turbines?

Presumably fossil fuels are required to produce wind turbines, solar panels?
How else?
The raw materials to produce them will need to be mined too.

It's a conundrum.

Alexa sadly that is true.

We had to have cold showers at school, Alexa

At my age I wouldn't relish the thought of that!

Have you heard the latest news? Seems the world isn’t flat. How stupid is that.

I'm surprised that the Aborigines haven't found water, or even a source of it as those who live in the outback must surely have tried---then it could be drilled.

When my D was here in June she was worried about the drought and the thought of fires then, as she's outside of Sydney. I'm sure she's not enjoying the heat they've got, even though she's used to it. Her H suffers with asthma so he has to stay in because of the smoke. No Christmas BBQ's for them.

I remember our wet and windy weather in the 80's and thought then that there was something going on because of the floods then and the drains being unable to cope with the volumes of water.
I also remember before the 8o's when the council used to come round in a lorry clearing and flushing the outside drains----then they seemed to have stopped doing it?

Many people are not on town water, EllanVannin and rely on stored rainwater or water channelled from the reservoirs which then has to be filtered and are also sinking bores.

I did hear that one of the problems is that Sydney and surrounds have just not invested in reservoirs to conserve any water that does fall - average rainfall is higher than London and the UK as a whole. They must start thinking ahead but I don't hold out a lot of hope with their present PM.

Weren’t some of the bush fires in Oz started on purpose? I’m sure I read that. Then with the bush as dry as tinder some of the small fires joined up and the wind fanning the flames did the rest.

As regards our canals when was the last time you saw a dredger on one? Ditto for grids & drains everywhere - huge kerbside ‘lakes’.

*EllenVannin" I'm an asthma sufferer who used to live in Suffolk and my asthma worsened during the 20 years I lived there. You would think that living in a rural area would be good, but no. In a nearby village there was a pollution measuring station and I read a report that placed it in the top 10 of polluted areas. One reason was the industrial pollution coming over from the Ruhr valley. Another was oil seed rape, the pollen of which, combined with heavy rain was disastrous for asthmatics.

My DH read an article about a wine tasting held on a boat on the Australian coast. Apparently the tasters were talking about the smoky flavour (obviously not caused by this year's fires) and they were bringing out their Ventolin inhalers and didn't know what was causing the problem because they couldn't see the smoke.

A couple of year ago, in London, I was so incapacitated by the atmosphere that I had to go everywhere by taxi. It wasn't the diesel fumes wot did it, it was caused by all the building works - on the underground but also renovating blocks of flats and adding extra storeys.

Where i live in France the air quality is very good - witnessed by the growth of lichen which only likes clean air. But, if I go into a supermarket, often the air quality is poor. Most people won't notice but us poor asthmatics do.

Urmstongran, yes two teenage boys were accused of starting fires in NSW.
We will never know how many others could have been started deliberately.